External Action Plugin

About External Action Plugin
Integration with Third Party Applications
Configuring your Integration
Request Operations Supported By Default
Default Integration (Integration with JIRA)

About External Action Plugin

Requests usually contain tasks that need several third party apps for their completion. Example: Active Directory account creation, issue tracker integration, new mail account creation and so on. To work on such requests the technician has to accomplish these tasks by accessing the concerned third party apps, perform the necessary operations and then populate the request template with the details obtained. This has been the procedure so far. Since this process might seem tedious to some, a feature - by name External Action Plugin - enabling technicians to perform various third-party related actions right from the request template at the click of a button has been introduced.The objective of External Action Plugin is to connect to any third party app - needed for processing requests - via XML codes that contain the code needed for integration with third party apps.

External Action Plugin

x_plugin

Integration with Third Party Applications

To integrate ServiceDesk Plus with third party apps you have to modify the file Request_ActionMenu.xml situated in the location: [SDP Home]/server/default/conf to suit your requirements.

Note	1. You can connect to third party apps from Actions menu of the respective Request's Details Page. 2. Actions Menu can be customized as per your requirement via External Action Plugin

Skeleton Code (along with dummy attributes) for Integrating SDP with Third Party Apps:

<menus>

<menu name="Add Jira Ticket" refresh="true">

<displaytext>Create a JIRA ticket</displaytext>

<roles>

<role>SDAdmin</role>

</roles>

<template>

<template>Default Request</template>

</templates>

<invoke>

<class>com.manageengine.servicedesk.actionplugin.sample.JIRAIntegration</class>

</invoke>

</menu>

</menus>

The above stated code integrates issue tracking software JIRA with ServiceDesk Plus via 'Add Jira Ticket' menu option that is added to the Actions menu. The statement com.manageengine.servicedesk.actionplugin.sample.JIRAIntegration (which calls for class JIRAIntegration) does this operation.

Note

1. In the above code JIRA Integration Class - part of ServiceDesk Plus by default - is invoked to bring about integration with ServiceDesk Plus.

2.Since we are dealing with tickets (requests) it becomes necessary to decide 'who gets access to it' and also the 'template to be used' while generating it. These are done using <roles> and <template> tags respectively.

Table illustrating various tags used in the code (along with their purpose):

Tags	Description	Example
menus	contains all menus you create under Actions menu; serves as root to all the menus.	<menus></menus>
menu	created individual menus - under Actions menu - each of which is identified using a unique 'name' attribute	<menu>JIRA Integration</menu> <menu>SDP Integration</menu>
display text	configures Text to be displayed in User Interface (UI); can be in i18N format (like "sdp.action.createticket") but should have the corrosponding key in '.properties' file under 'custom/i18n/	<displaytext>SCP to Jira Integration</displaytext> <displaytext>SCP to SDP Integration</displaytext>
roles	contains all roles (access permission) for accessing/viewing Actions Menu configured via External Action Plugin	<roles></roles>
role	creates roles (access permission) for accessing/viewing Actions Menu configured via External Action Plugin	<role>SDADMIN</role> <role>SDGUEST</role>
templates	Refers to various templates associated with Requests; optional tag that won't be required when all templates are taken into consideration	<templates></templates>
template	Refers to an unique template to be associated with Requests (like Incident Template, Reply Template etc.,)	<template>default template</template> <template>system defined template</template>
invoke	Tag responsible for invoking the necessary action (like tagging a request with ID etc.,)	<invoke></invoke>
class	Refers to Class with which the needed action is scripted	<class>JiraActionImplementation</class>

Configuring your Integration

Customize SDP (Actions Menu) to integrate with third party apps for performing request related operations by extending the DefaultActionInterface based on your requirements.

Note	1. DefaultActionInterface is the interface that allows external actions to be performed on an entity (in this case, the Actions Menu) 2. An implementation of the ActionInterface Class should be specified in the .xml file.

Extending the DefaultActionInterface:

package com.manageengine.servicedesk.actionplugin.sample;

import com.manageengine.servicedesk.actionplugin.executor.ActionInterface

import com.manageengine.servicedesk.actionplugin.executor.ExecutorData

public class JIRAIntegration extends DefaultActionInterface

{

public JSONObject execute(ExecutorData executorData) throws Exception {

}

Methods available in ExecutorData are:

Package: com.manageengine.servicedesk.actionplugin.executor.ExecutorData

a. getActionMenuData( )

Parameter	Return Value	Action
getMenuName	String	gets the name of the action menu
getDisplayText	String	gets the display name for the action menu
getExecutorClass	String	gets the configured implementation class
getRefresh	Boolean	gets info related to whether the page should be refreshed or not)
getAllowedRoles	Array	gets info about list of allowed roles; is empty when not configured
getAllowedTemplates	Array	gets info about list of allowed templates; remains empty when not configured

b.getDataJSON( )

Will return JSONObject of the request from where the menu is invoked. Sample data would be like:

{

"WORKORDERID":"4",

"REQUESTER":"Guest",

"CREATEDBY":"administrator",

"DUEBYTIME":"-1",

"RESPONSEDUEBYTIME":"-1",

"CREATEDBY":"administrator",

"FR_DUETIME":"-1",

"RESPONDEDTIME":"0",

"RESOLVEDTIME":"0",

"COMPLETEDTIME":"0",

"SHORTDESCRIPTION":"The printer is not working from the machines that are in the 10th floort",

"TIMESPENTONREQ":"0hrs 0min",

"SUBJECT":"Printer not working",

"REQUESTTEMPLATE":"Default Request",

"MODE":" ",

"SLA":" ",

"ASSET":" ",

"DEPARTMENT":" ",

"SITE":" ",

"CATEGORY":" ",

"SUBCATEGORY":" ",

"ITEM":" ",

"TECHNICIAN":" ",

STATUS":"Open",

"PRIORITY":" ",

"LEVEL":" ",

"IMPACT":" ",

"URGENCY":" ",

"IMPACTDETAILS":" ",

"REQUESTYPE":" ",

"CLOSURECODE":" ",

"CLOSURECOMMENTS":" ",

"GROUP":" ",

}

Request Operations Supported By Default

With this information customers can write their own implementation code for perform the necessary operation. Now, there are two ways to update a ticket. The first option is to use the REST API support available in SDP and update the request or perform operations like adding a worklog, notes, resolution etc., The second is to use the default return functionality supported by action plugin framework.

The execute method returns a JSON Object. By default, adding of notes and updating a request is supported if the returned JSON complies with the supported format.

a. Adding Notes to a Request

{

"message":"Request Added Successfully",

"result":"success",

"operation":[

{

"INPUT_DATA": [

{

"notes": {

"notesText":"Tickethas been created in JIRA and information populated in SDP"

}

}],

"OPERATIONNAME":"ADD_NOTE"

}],

}

b. Updating a Request

{

"message":"Request Added Successfully",

"result":"success",

"operation":[

{

"INPUT_DATA": [

{

"Jira ID":"35",

"Jira Key":"SDP-3",

"self":"http://jira-server/rest/api/2/issue/35"

}],

"OPERATIONNAME":"UPDATE_REQUEST"

}],

}

Default Integration (integration with JIRA)

For configuring Request Actions Menu

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<menus>

<menu name=""JiraIntegration"" refresh="true">

<displaytext>SCP to Jira Integration</displaytext>

<roles>

<role>ModifyRequests</role>

</roles>

<template>

<template>System Defined Template</template>

</templates>

<invoke>

<class>com.manageengine.supportcenter.integrations.jira.action.JiraActionImplementation</class>

</invoke>

</menu>

<menu name=""SDP Integration"" refresh="true">

<displaytext>SCP to SDP Integration</displaytext>

<roles>

<role>ModifyRequests</role>

</roles>

<templates>

<template>System Defined Template</template>

<template>testing</template>

</templates>

<invoke>

<class>com.manageengine.supportcenter.integrations.jira.action.SDPActionImplementation</class>

</invoke>

</menu>

</menus>

For JIRA Integration

Note: We will be providing a default implementation for JIRA. For this customers needs to define another xml which will have the JIRA specific implementations.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<menus>

<--Specifies the input parameters that should be passed to JIRA-->

<username>administrator</username>

<password>administrator</password>

<url>http://seshadri-0040:8080/rest/api/2/issue/</url>

<param>

<name>project</name>

<type>projectpicker</type>

</param>

<param>

<name>Issuetype</name>

<type>select</type>

</param>

<param>

<name>summary</name>

<type>textfield</type>

<value>$subject</value>

<param>

<name>priority</name>

<type>select</type>

<value>$priority</value>

</param>

<param>

<name>description</name>

<type>textarea</type>

<value>$description</value>

</param>

<param>

<name>labels</name>

<type>labels</type>

<value>$JIRA_ISSUE_ID</value>

</param>

<param>

<name>environment</name>

<type>textarea</type>

<value>$description</value>

</param>

<param>

<name>duedate</name>

<type>datepicker</type>

<value>$dueByTime</value>

</param>

<param>

<name>customfield_10002</name>

<value>$Company Website</value>

</param>

<param>

<name>customfield_10100</name>

<value>$JIRA_SelectList</value>

</param>

<param>

<name>customfield_10200</name>

<type>float</type>

<value>$Jira Numeric Field</value>

<param>

<name>customfield_10300</name>

<type>textfield</type>

<value>$Jira_Text Field</value>

</param>

<param>

<name>customfield_10301</name>

<type>datetime</type>

</param>

<param>

<name>customfield_10302</name>

<type>datepicker</type>

<value>$Jira_Date Picker</value>

</param>

<param>

<name>customfield_10303</name>

<type>userpicker</type>

<value>$Jira_User Picker</value>

</param>

<param>

<name>customfield_10304</name>

<type>grouppicker</type>

<value>$Jira_Group Picker</value>

<param>

<name>customfield_10306</name>

<type>textarea</type>

<value>$Jira_Free Text Field</value>

</param>

</request>

<success>Successfully Integrated with Jira and the Jira id is : $id</success>

<failure>Failed to Integrate to jira</failure>

<param>

<name>JIRA_ISSUE_ID</name>

</param>

<param>

<name>JIRA_ISSUE_URL</name>

</param>

<notes>

<note>Ticket is created in jira with key : $key And with Id: $id</note>

<note>Ticket is created in jira with issueID : $id</note>

</notes>

</response>

</menu>

<menus>